..Explanation
Mayor Ginther’s vision for Columbus, America’s Opportunity City, is that every child is ready for kindergarten. Kindergarten readiness is a multidimensional construct reflecting young children’s preparedness for instruction in areas related to both academic and social-emotional skills. Children who arrive to kindergarten with limited readiness in one or more of these areas face challenges in the transition into the kindergarten setting, and are susceptible to academic achievement over time.
Participation in quality early childhood education can provide an important mechanism for developing children’s school readiness; likewise, certain intentional parenting practices, such as shared book-reading and numeracy discussions, also can support school readiness. However, not all children have access to quality early learning programs and/or intentional parenting practices.
Because of this, the City has previously partnered with the Crane Center for Early Childhood Research and Policy at Ohio State University on the Summer Success program, a four-week intensive summer readiness ‘camp’ for children without prior ECE experience and those who may not have sufficient support at home for developing key readiness skills.
This year, as in 2022, the Office of Education is partnering with the Crane Center to develop and distribute summer at-home toolkits to enhance the kindergarten readiness of rising kindergarteners. Children will be led through activities that include language and literacy development; print awareness, numeracy, and social-emotional skills. Stage completions are incentivized. Participation, and eventual kindergarten readiness test scores, will be tracked and analyzed. Children will be enrolled via a partnership with Nationwide Children Hospital’s Pediatric Primary Care network, with a priority on Linden and Whitehall children. 95 percent of children in this program are Medicaid-eligible.
Ordinance 1323-2022, approved by Columbus City Council...
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